Like Greater Manchester and so many other brigades, the Merseyside Fire Brigade began on April 1st 1974. It's origins were with the former City of Liverpool Brigade, and the borough Brigades of Wallasey, Birkenhead, Bootle, Southport and St. Helens. In addition, it took over some fire stations previously under the jurisdiction of Lancashire County and Cheshire County Fire Brigades.
Since 1974 there has been some rationalisation of stations, and although currently the smallest brigade in the north-west with 26 fire stations, nevertheless there are several major risks within the county boundary and over the last 20+ years there have been numerous major incidents for the brigade to cope with.
There has been a renewal programme and many of the older stations have now disappeared. One further loss on Merseyside was the demise of the Liverpool Fire Salvage Corps. Although a separate entity from the brigade, the former Salvage Corps Headquarters in Derby Road, Kirkdale, has been put to full use by the Brigade and houses a number of Headquarters' Departments as well as Fire Control.
Merseyside is almost entirely wholetime manning, with the 3rd pump at Southport being manned by retained personnel. It is divided into 5 divisions, Central, North, South, East and West.